Play framework: issues with implementing restful update operation - rest

Question

We're creating RESTFul API based on Play framework 2.1.x which transfers/accepts data in JSON format. Create, read and delete operations were easy to implement but we've got stuck with update operation.
Here are the entities we have:
Event:
#Entity
public class Event extends Model {
#Id
public Long id;
#NotEmpty
public String title;
#OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
public Location location;
#OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
public List<Stage> stages = new LinkedList<Stage>();
...
}
Location:
#Entity
public class Location extends Model {
#Id
public Long id;
#NotEmpty
public String title;
public String address;
...
}
Stage:
#Entity
public class Stage extends Model {
#Id
public Long id;
#NotEmpty
public String title;
public int capacity;
...
}
In our router we have following entry:
PUT /events/:id controllers.Event.updateEvent(id: Long)
updateEvent method in controller looks following way (note: we use Jackson library to map objects to JSON and back):
#BodyParser.Of(BodyParser.Json.class)
public static Result updateEvent(Long id) {
Event event = Event.find.byId(id);
Http.RequestBody requestBody = request().body();
JsonNode jsonNode = requestBody.asJson();
try {
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
ObjectReader reader = mapper.readerForUpdating(event);
event = reader.readValue(jsonNode);
event.save();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return ok();
}
After we've got Event from database, updated its values by reading from JSON with ObjectReader we try to save updated Event and get exception (similar one we get when trying to update list of Stages):
org.h2.jdbc.JdbcSQLException: Unique index or primary key violation: "PRIMARY_KEY_9F ON PUBLIC.LOCATION(ID)"; SQL statement: insert into location (id, title, address) values (?,?,?) [23505-168]
According to H2 logs framework tries to perform insert operation for location and fails as location with specified id already exists. We've investigated further ant it looks like when we get Event from DB, location is not joined because of lazy fetch. Looks like the problem occurs with saving other entities which our Event has relationships with. We've tried to force fetch operation for location by doing following:
Event event = Ebean.find(Event.class).fetch("location").where().eq("id", id).findUnique();
but still when we update this event with ObjectReader's readValue method and save Event we get the same exception.
We've also tried to create separate Event object from JSON and update Event from DB field by field (implemented merge operation by ourselves) and it worked but it looks odd that framework doesn't provide any means of merging and updating entities with data passed from client.
Could someone advise on how to solve this problem ? Any example showing how to implement merge of entity with JSON data coming from client and updating it in storage would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

You've probably already fixed the error by now, but in case this helps someone else, I'm answering it anyway.
I'm just a beginner with Play Framework as well, only started a few days ago. But I believe when you have in your code:
event.save();
you should be doing instead:
event.update();
The problem here is that you're not inserting a new entity into the database, but in fact just updating the one already there, so you need to use the second method.
You can find more info about this at http://www.playframework.com/documentation/2.0/api/java/play/db/ebean/Model.html